Comment by PedroBatista
2 years ago
Yes, make macOS more and more like iPadOS so their users can do less and less other than buying apps from the app store and scrolling through the slop on Safari.
Apple kinda reminds me of Intel in the 2010's ( not 1-1 comparison ), hollowed and rotting inside but in a constant party because $$ coming in and line going up..
They wrongly think because they control the dials when things start to go south they can just step on the gas and change course, it's a fools illusion because the people who actually can make a difference will not be there and the whole organization already is tuned for the wrong incentives, so when Tim Apple's minions step of the gas... nothing will happen other than pumping out more "beautiful, amazing, thinner" but useless slop.
> Yes, make macOS more and more like iPadOS so their users can do less and less other than buying apps from the app store and scrolling through the slop on Safari.
This doesn't seem at all a fair characterization of what happened here - you can still run these applications, they just added a (seemingly pretty reasonable) step to do so. I don't see this as allowing users to do less, and I struggle to find a strong argument against this when the typical user is not a l33t hacker type and most typical users find it extremely easy to download and run malware.
> you can still run these applications, they just added a (seemingly pretty reasonable) step to do so.
Every version of macOS makes it harder and harder to run unsigned code. They keep pushing the bypass deeper and making it less convenient. It’s super super annoying and stupid.
Protecting users against malware should be the job of XProtect. If a naive user can run malware via right-clicking, they can do it nearly as easily through the Privacy & Security page. All this change does is bring unsigned software closer to outright deprecation, at which point Apple can backdoor app review through notarization just like they do on iOS in the EU.
I’m probably viewing this too much in the lens of an IT administrator, I absolutely do not want any of my machines to run unsigned applications and I can’t think of any reasons I personally would want to, so for me, that friction is a good thing.
As to what Apple may eventually do, just seems a little speculative.
Users shouldn’t need to control-click/right click though. That’s not something I can think that exists anywhere else in macOS.
Putting this in system settings makes sense.
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You don't need to distribute via the app store for your app to be notarized, you just need to have an apple developer account ($99/year) and go through the notarization flow, which is automated and typically takes less than a minute.
You're free to distribute (and sell) your notarized app however you want.
> You're free to distribute (and sell) your notarized app however you want.
Provided you’re continuing paying every year.
Sure, to notarize a new version you need to have an active subscription. I pay the fee out of my entertainment budget because writing Apple platform apps in my free time is more fun than tv. It’s less than the price of Netflix too.
~$100/year is not nothing outside the first world. Esp when you need to balance it with other subscription costs. The hardware is owned by other people. Why should one have to pay Apple for running a binary outside their premises ? Its just plain tyranny.
> automated and typically takes less than a minute
I have no problem with the fee, but getting that frickin signing process just right took me days to get working right the first time.
I wonder if they will foresee a “free” tier of the developer program so open source maintainers can consider this as even remotely viable?
There is also the quetion of privacy, for FOSS creators who are not a company, to have their real name shipped with the binary.
Or is all of this theatrics to try and resuscitate the probably-dead Mac App Store?
This already exists. Mozilla is on the free tier. I would like to see a non-profit organization step up to do this for other projects.
And then the non profit changes hands and suddenly every app it facilitates is in a complicated situation…
I don’t think Apple has truly considered the ramifications of their little security tricks.
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